Dark Passion
by LediShae
Summary: Follows the first OAV. Rikki returns to Iason, his face bruised and ego shattered after Guy learns of his pet status. Now back in the penthouse Rikki is determined to have his freedom while Iason has plans of his own.
1. Old Pet New Tricks

**A/N:** Not mine, all rights belong to Ai no Kusabi original creators and distributors.

Warnings: Depictions of homosexuality, male/male and quasi-con. Mentions of smoking.

* * *

Riki shook his head savagely as he left the slums of Ceres for the last time, he had tried so hard to discourage his master, he had used every ounce of his will power and restraint to force the elite silver haired Blondie to become fed up with him and finally release him, yet his efforts had all been in vain.

Three years of anguish and hatred had passed while he had served as Iason Mink's unwilling pet. The day he had been released he had fled from the sparkling city of lies only to discover that the dirty slums he had yearned for, the freedom he had craved; it had all been an illusion of juvenile pride. His gang, Bison, was little more than a petty collection of thugs, all willing to do anything to find just enough credits to buy their stout and get high. Truthfully, it was pathetic. The work he had done for Katze in the black market before his three years of imprisonment had been truly exciting and challenging. The small jobs Bison did were yawn-worthy.

Even with three years of disuse his training in street fighting had put his former comrades' to shame. Yet they just wanted things to go back to normal. Guy wanted Riki back to the way they were, the others wanted their short, fiery leader back, and as for himself? He had been willing at the time to just let things go back to the way they were, to forget in the fog of their drugs the years serving Iason Mink.

It was Killie who showed him how much he had missed the black market runs. The job the young punk proposed thrilled him even as it froze him to the core. Yet he could not turn it down. It wasn't for the credits, the sum was tempting, but more than that was the chance to get close to the cold power of his former master.

Rikki shivered at the thought. Iason Mink, his tormenter, his most hated object, his Master and, only after he had escaped did he realize, his reason for existence. The temptation to go back to those strong arms, to be controlled with a whisper and bound by a caress was what drove him to the job.

When they had been set up, the others getting shot, Guy getting beaten up and himself captured it was the raw power of Iason that he craved. Guy had to use his strength to hold Rikki down, Iason had to use his strength to hold himself back so not to hurt Rikki while pinning him. That power drew the mutt in like a moth to a flame. He could throw any number of abuses at his master and never be injured for all the punishments he took.

Rikki had never truly appreciated Iason's power until after he had been back with Bison for six months. Guy had pinned him, Rikki had become used to struggling against Iason that he easily threw Guy off of him without even realizing it. The sudden lifting of the taller man's weight off of him had made him suddenly and painfully aware that he longed for Iason's strength once more. The Elite's condescending tone, the cold blue eyes and stiff body had become the center of Riki's world. To suddenly realize how much he longed to be back in that tight embrace made him simultaneously enraged and sorrowful for demanding his freedom so forcefully.

The next night Rikki longed for the feel of the leather collar he would often wear at his master's command. The nakedness of his throat actually made him uncomfortable. The next day Rikki had another realization.

Most pet rings were worn on the neck, wrist or ankle as decorations, his fit around his member, hiding quite easily under clothing to allow him to pass unnoticed as just another mongrel. He craved that identity now, to be possessed by Iason Mink, to be owned and controlled just so he could thwart his command, it was the power struggle he missed. He yearned for Iason Mink.

Now Rikki's year of freedom was up, he had struggled against Iason as he reclaimed him as his pet, but he was gladder than ever to see the towering Blondie. Riki strode through the rain, face bruised from Guy's anger. He carried all his worldly possessions he had been forced to leave behind when Iason had first claimed him on his back as he strode proudly through the streets of Ceres to Tanagura. He would return to Iason, he would wear the pet ring and stand by his master's side, even though he would rage against the shackles that bound him all the while. It was the power he craved.

The power to control Iason even as the elite controlled him. It was the chance to turn Iason into something more human even as he became more of an owned possession. They each lost, they each gained. It wasn't love, not as love is should be, instead it was an addictive need for each other. Iason was right, he couldn't live without Riki and Riki couldn't live without Iason. They were fire and ice opposites impossibly separated only touching through the steam their friction created. It was in its own way paradise, and Riki would have it no other way.

Except that this time around, Riki was _not_ remaining locked within the apartment like a furniture, even the poor castrated young boys had more freedom than pets. No, this time he would demand to work with Katze, and make something of himself, even as he would await his master's return with morbid anticipation.

* * *

Iason sat upon his favorite white couch, pale, white wine shimmered in his goblet, barely touched and mostly ignored as he stared out the full length windows to Tanagura's shimmering night below. "Rikki", the name slipped from his mouth unbidden, his silent reverie shattered by the single word. He longed for his pet's presence, the brilliant fire, the silent strength that lay hidden beneath the dark, petite form. The young man was amazing; he pushed Iason every day, his ability to resist Iason's greater strength increasing daily.

'I captured you upon a whim, your fire pulling me against my will to you. Now I only think of regaining you, my pet. You asked for this final chance to return to Ceres and bid farewell to your former partner, now, will you return to me? Or must I find you once more?' Iason's line of thought was shattered as the front door silently clicked as it was unlocked from the outside.

Iason held firm control over his expression and voice as he waited with silent impatience to discover if it was his pet returned or one of his servants as the door processed the command to open. The silence stretched, pulling at Iason's nerves, making him itch to stand up and throw open the door just to satisfy his curiosity. Finally the door shushed as it opened, revealing to Iason's hungering eyes the object of his infatuation, and he could only stare in a mix of lust, fury, hatred and delicious pride at the figure standing cockily in the doorway.

"Rikki," Iason said softly, his voice full of power and command. The dark young man before him obeyed the unspoken order, walking into the entry hall and down the dark corridor to stand at Iason's side. "You have been fighting." There was concern in Iason's voice, something that startled Rikki even though he remained silent save for a simple nod to affirm his master's observation.

Iason stood, towering silently above the smaller man and approached the figure he had longed to hold for this past year. Cupping the bruised cheek gently Iason smoothed its abraded surface before leaning in to press his lips against his pet's.

Rikki silently turned his head away, eyes challenging and silently suppressing the shivering thrill of anticipation Iason's boring fury had on him. "You have returned, yet your training seems to have worn off some, do I need to remind you that I am your master?"

Rikki smirked, his insides squirming with masochistic delight at Iason's heightened fury. "I returned to you as I still wear the ring, Master." Rikki responded softly, "But I will go mad if I am once more trapped inside all day with nothing to do but smoke and pace. Allow me to work for Katze if he'll allow me. Let me run errands, do _something_ or you will find your furniture in hysterics when he discovers my dead body while you're away." Iason nearly waved away Rikki's words as melodramatics, but the gleam in his eyes told him that Rikki was in no way over reacting.

Could the solitude of the apartment be so hard for Rikki to take? Iason thought back on the movements he had monitored during Rikki's time away and noted that Rikki had rarely stayed still. Even if his gang did little more in a day than get stoned, he was constantly on the move. It was an amazing realization and caused Iason pause in his response.

"Strip and stand against the wall." Iason commanded, ignoring Rikki's words momentarily as he allowed himself to finally see his pet as he had wanted to for so long. The dark young man slowly dropped his bag to his feet, stepped towards the far wall facing the couch and began to undo his clothing at a rate geared to drive Iason mad.

Each step heralded a new motion, the zipper of his jacket softly groaned before the black leather fell to the ground in a soft mound. The belt followed next, then the tank top. His boots and socks were discarded in a well balanced mix between a balancing act and a dance that riveted Iason's gaze. Then the pants finally revealed the firm buttocks and lean thighs. Iason struggled to keep his gaze cool and aloof. Such hunger that he felt was unseemly to show to a mere pet, and still the pull to break all controls and rules gnawed at him. He felt compelled to show his pet exactly how much this year had taxed him.

Finally Rikki placed his back against the cool wall, silently shivering at the loss of warmth even as his member hardened from the chill causing his pet ring to shine in the twinkling city lights from beyond the windows. He blinked and started, Iason had gone from standing silently by the couch to towering over him in less than a heartbeat. Again the Blondie's power drew the mongrel in and he nearly dropped his rebellious facade to give himself willingly to his master, he was stopped only by his desire for freedom as much as the Blondie's control.

Iason pinned Rikki against the wall with a single hand covering both of the smaller man's hands. He devoured Rikki's lithe form with icy blue eyes, took in his toned figure, his body now leaner than when he left, more muscle had been added from all the exertion. Suddenly Iason had a deviant thought, one to which he nearly closed his mind against as it stood at the very opposite of the Elites' sense of propriety. He thought back to how Rikki's struggles against him made the conquest that much more enjoyable and then imagined a stronger Rikki, one capable of actually putting up a fight against a Blondie's true strength and felt his member go hard.

"I believe Katze has enough workers for now" Iason murmured, shocking Rikki into staring outright at him and the burning hatred filling those dark depths filled Iason's entire being with longing to once more reclaim his pet. "However," Iason paused, watching the flicker of engulfing hatred smolder into burning mistrust, "I do believe Latthiew could use a new agent."

"Who is Latthiew?" Rikki questioned breathlessly, as Iason had been absorbing Rikki's image as he had talked his other hand had been busy remembering every contour of his pet and Rikki was starting to feel the effects on having those hands that held such amazing power softly caressing him with such gentleness.

"We can discuss that later." Iason responded, his breath catching at Rikki's smoldering anger burning through the lust that filled his eyes. It was too much to take in, and the Elite could no longer hold back. With as much restraint as he still possessed he slowly descended to take his pet's mouth, slowly retracing contours long absent and delved into the hot cavern that battled him even as it welcomed his presence.

With more control than he felt he possessed Iason drew Rikki into his arms, slowly drawing the both of them to the darkened bedroom. There, for the first time, Iason slowly took Rikki, reclaiming his petite body as his property, but without any means of control, somewhere along the way Iason had teased the ring off of his pet, allowing him to reach his full completion even as he once more sneered in the face of Jupiter's authority.

* * *

Rikki slowly awoke, his body still resting from the nights activities. His skin tingled and his body seemed to hum from the attention Iason had lavished upon him the night previous. Their coupling had been violent, as was their norm, but more enjoyable than he had ever experienced before. Rikki had resisted and struggled against his captor even as Iason dominated him easily with his greater physical strength.

The warm arm drawn protectively over his chest, hugging him close to Iason's front told Rikki that there would be no moving from his current position. Even though it irked him to be imprisoned within the apartment unable to slake his morning craving for that first cigarette, the sated lethargy remaining from last night made him unable to act upon his ire.

"You are still here." Iason breathed groggily, his sudden words causing Rikki to start. "I feared it was another dream." Iason sighed heavily, drawing in a lungful of Rikki's spicy tobacco-laced scent accented with the musk of sex. It was a scent Iason had taken for granted during their first three years together. It wasn't until he had released the boy that he had realized how much he had come to depend on that scent to start his mornings.

Rikki turned within the confines of Iason's embrace. "Another dream?" Dark eyes prompted, boring into pale turquoise.

"I missed you." Iason breathed, his voice deepened and roughened with emotions barely shimmering within the cerulean depths. Iason descended, once more claiming his pet's lips for his own, savoring the moment and conquering all the resistance the fiery youth threw at him, making the conquest that much more delicious.

"Who is Latthew." Rikki demanded, breaking the moment as soon has his lips were released. Rikki allowed a hint of smug satisfaction to fill him as he relished the hard glitter that betrayed Iason's annoyance in the sudden change of topic. Iason swiftly stood, leaving Rikki behind in the still-warm bed.

"Latthiew is the Elite head of all Tanagura security. He has been seeking a suitable agent capable of infiltrating certain crime syndicates. You would suit perfectly." Iason stated, staring hard at the mongrel before him.

"Why?" Rikki demanded. The sudden change from suffocating Rikki by keeping him as an indoor only pet to allowing him the freedom to serve as an agent made him tense with suspicion. Iason rarely allowed his opinion to be swayed by something so trifling as a pet's desires. This new generosity spoke volumes of an ulterior motive; one Rikki felt would only cause him trouble.

"My pet," Iason breathed softly, somehow making the hated term into an endearment that stole Rikki's breath momentarily, just long enough for Iason to once more plunder his lips and feel his slightly stiffening member and rekindle the latent lust from last night. The sweet torture ended much too soon and Rikki had to swallow a defeated sigh at the loss of his master's touch until he realized it had all been a ruse to replace the missing pet ring held snugly by the warm flesh at the base of his member. Rikki leapt from the bed, snagged his pants and jacket in a quick rush as he bolted to the balcony.

Now clothed in pants and jacket Rikki pulled out his first cigarette of the day and drew in a deep lungful, the maddening craving burning in his veins relaxing as the nicotine hit. He slowly sighed, finally feeling more normal since he stepped into this damnable apartment late last night. Iason was still a crafty bastard, using his lust and strength against Rikki's overwhelming need for independence and freedom.

"I have made arrangements for an interview with Latthiew for you. I suggest you get prepared." Iason stood silently by Rikki breathing in the heady fragrance of the smoke that underlined the scent of his pet.

"Pets can't become agents." Rikki pointed out sullenly. "Neither can mongrels."

"No, Rikki cannot be an agent, but Raze Linx can." Iason said with a victorious smirk. Before Rikki could question this newest turn of events Katze appeared and drug the unwilling mongrel away.

* * *

Rikki stared dazedly at the green haired man who stood before him in the full length mirror of the dressing room. Dark green hair, a green Elite, bronze skin and deep garnet eyes flashing like sunlight off freshly spilt blood bored into him. Rikki still wasn't too sure how Katze had managed this feat and he wasn't even going to ask how they had appeared in a room that, as far as Rikki knew, had never existed in the apartment.

"I'll only tell you this once. Iason has pulled enough strings to make this happen that should our deception be discovered we will all surely be terminated by Jupiter." Katze glared at the thug who only glared back. "Raze Linx has become your primary identity, any fingerprint scans will turn up his files, any references will lead directly to that name. Fortunately Mongrels aren't counted among the citizens registry and thus have no records. It's also a blessing that you were only caught by the cops once, and that by Iason's will, your files were completely removed from all data terminals." Katze explained succiently. As he spoke he locked eyes with the masked mongrel his one jade eye visible around the styled auburn hair that hid his lasting punishment from Iason. A scar that ran slantwise along his cheek marred the once perfect features of the man who had been Iason's furniture many years ago.

"Basically you never existed before this point. You are a high quality breeder specially requested from our Elite Labs nineteen years ago and have been trained in martial arts and strategy until your exile into the slums eight years ago. Your donor was Riter Linx, recently assassinated Green Elite from East Tanagura. His death prompted you to seek a local patron to support you in attaining entry to the Tempest Guards -

"The _what_?!" Rikki squaked. "Iason said I was to become an agent, not one of Tanagura's elite, specially bred police! They are all elites! They would detect my mongrel blood before I even set foot on premises." Rikki scoffed at the idea of him becoming one of the most dangerous police within the city.

"That is where you are wrong." Katze stated coolly. "Riter, in his strange curiosity, sent you down into the slums of Ceres when you were but a boy. He felt that your constant insubordination was warrant enough for such a severe punishment. Instead of being killed by the many gangs down there, you thrived, becoming a leader of your own crew before their untimely demise. Finally tired of the constant struggle for survival you returned to the city only to find your father dead.

"Furious at his murder, annoyed at the regular police's lack of evidence and seeming unconcern with the case, you decided to turn to the other elites to aid you in your cause. Thus Iason Mink took interest in your cause. His support and charity most probably stemming from his most recent infatuation with the mongrel he kept as a pet - many will view this as an atonement for his deviant actions. "

"Wait, you can't just make people up." Rikki spoke up forcefully, "What happened to the real Raze Linx?"

"I killed him six months ago, but kept his identification card. You now have full access to his accounts and holdings." Katze responded handing Rikki the id card and continued the crash course in his new history. "None of his father's furniture or pets were around the real Raze to know you are not him and have already been auctioned off at Riter's command in his will such that the proceeds from the auctioning be allotted to Raze as a monetary gift to ensure he may obtain the pets and furniture to his own tastes at his convenience." Katze finishe, turning Rikkit around to look him over once more.

Rikki stopped to think the current situation over as he tumbled the card in his hand over and over staring above its surface to a point only his eyes could see. Here he had what he had desired since his to Tanagura yesterday. Here was his ability to be with Iason, yet free to move about. His mongrel nature could not be questioned as it had a ready answer and he could use his street smarts and skills at will with no need to justify his knowledge of such things.

"What happened to his gang?" Rikki asked and Katze smirked in appreciation of the youth's quick mind.

"I had them killed recently when they had become a thorn in my side. I could tolerate them as competition, but I do not tolerate my merchandise being damaged out of spite. When they took out of my profits their lives were no longer valuable." The taller man replied with a careless shrug.

Rikki nodded, it was the way of the slums and especially the way of the black market underworld. Entire gangs were wiped out on a whim, sometimes not the gang intended or the one planning the destruction of another ended up being wiped out. The underworld of Tanagura was a hard place to live and yet, it was home. "Fine." Rikki consented and waited for Katze to lead him to his destination.

"Oh and Rikki?" Katze started, as he waited, his smirk grew as Rikki ignored his own name. "Master Linx, please follow me." The two left the hidden room emerging into a lushly appointed suite, one Rikki had remembered being kept in case of visitors. "This is your suite, should you feel the need, Master Mink is just down the hall he has requested you attend him this evening."

Rikki thought of all the things Iason might say at such a command and decided to emulate Iason's renowned silence. Merely giving a barely discernable nod Rikki followed Katze through the suite, left the apartment and descended in the elevator to the car park beneath the street level of the complex.

"Katze," Iason's voice grabbed at the pair as they emerged into the car park. Iason stood beside the car, a towering figure intimidating both young men with his presence alone. "I believe this will do." The words were spoken blandly, little emotion in either eyes or voice, yet both men felt the flush of praise at this coming off so well thus far.

"It is enough to get me past a surface inspection." Rikki bit off, "But I won't last a fuck'n minute in there. I haven't any instincts like you've got." Both Katze and Iason smirked at the smallest of their group and got into the car. Rikki fumed but followed; what else could he do?

* * *

The ride to Latthiew's headquarters was short but tense. For Iason it was pleasant as he willingly held his pet's hand, pleased to be able to enjoy such a simple pleasure without Rikki protesting. They pulled up before a pleasant looking high rise, much like Iason's, only not nearly so tall and more humble. Katze pulled up to the front entrance, letting his two passengers off and drove away to the building's car park knowing that he must be patient and await their return to learn of Rikki's fate.

Iason settled his perfect mask upon his features. Gone was the knowing smirk, the glittering eyes and the hand reaching out to the much smaller man, in their stead stood the public face of Iason Mink. Everyone on the sidewalk and entrance of the building automatically made themselves scare. Few wished to pass too close to Jupiter's favorite. The man could have them killed or turned into auction pets on a whim.

Rikki took a deep breath, wishing desperately for a cigarette to calm his nerves, and stepped in sync with Iason. He allowed the Elite to take the lead and stayed himself. Rikki didn't bother to act like an Elite, he knew it would be pointless. Elites were tall, powerful, regal and held a radiant light that outshone all others; all things Rikki knew he wasn't.

The short walk to a private elevator was harsh on Rikki. Every step, he expected the guards to yell at the pet intruding on their tower. Yet, the only noise was the opening and closing of the elevator doors and the soft hum of the motors as they descended to the lowest basement level of the building, one hundred feet below the ground floor and able to be accessed by an extremely select few. Rikki felt himself tense as the doors opened revealing to them something Rikki could barely believe wasn't a fever dream.

Iason looked upon the main hall of the Tempest with bland disinterest. Before him many of the guards strode up and down the hallway that stretched before them upon their own personal errands. Yet, he knew how strange this place looked. Several of the guards resembled pets, even still in their assigned miniscule clothing. There was little clothing among the pet impersonating guards to be seen, a g-string here, a pet ring there, some completely nude save for the gauze gowns that only highlighted their delicate frames and hid nothing from the imagination.

Others looked almost like mongrels, and still more resembled the citizenry of Tanagura. There were even a couple of women who strode down the halls with equal confidence as their male counterparts. No one even glanced at Raze Linx as he stalked down the hall all glances were reserved for Iason Mink alone. And Rikki was damned if he would allow his jealousy to show at all the appraising glances his master received. Only he was allowed to look at Iason that way.

Iason took them to the final door on the hallway's long corridor. He hid a silent smirk at how well Rikki was doing. The mongrel was fantastic, he blended in with the many guards here as if he had been born Raze Linx. As the door slid open to reveal Latthiew Higura Rikki had to hold his breath to keep from gasping in surprise. The security chief of Tanagura was short by Elite standars and ugly as well. His blonde hair was a dirty shade of off brown, his eyes an uninspiring shade of dull blue that made him seem little more than an above average height citizen. Only his hands gave him away. No citizen or mongrel had such perfectly sculpted hands.

"Iason, I expected you tomorrow." Latthiew sated in the same calm tone that all Elites used. Iason barely glanced at the smaller Elite before thrusting Rikki forward with a hand firmly upon his shoulder.

"This is Raze Linx, he seeks entrance into your guard. He knows the black market and the Slums. He may prove useful. Do with him as you wish, only return him to me alive. I have sponsored him thus far and I refuse to allow my investment to fail. If he does not serve your interests, he will serve mine instead. Contact my chauffer to pick him up when you no longer need him." Iason glanced once more at Rikki before giving a brief nod to Latthiew and headed back to the car park. He would stay for an hour if Rikki took longer than that, he knew Rikki would be as good as dead. No recruits took much longer than an hour to find their spots in the Tempest Gurads. Those who did manage to break the hour marker usually never showed again, or were found dumped in the slums, their corpses nearly beyond recognition.

* * *

Rikki panted between bouts. He had lost track of how long he had been here. The mental challenges, the written tests and the stealth tests had all taken so long. Then the health screening, the physical challenges to see if his breeding was true and he possessed all the traits Raze Linx's breeding certificate claimed. Now they were brawling. Three on one, two on one, five on four, three on two, the pairings at first seemed random, but he was quickly seeing the patterns, testing who he was compatible with, where his weaknesses lie, what fighting skills he lacked. These brawls covered all the traits Latthiew was looking for in an agent. Rikki knew just by watching the stern man's face that he was showing his mongrel nature far too much. He was going to be returned to Iason, as the lowly pet he had become.

"Enough." Latthiew stated softly. Everyone paused, stood and awaited their next order as Rikki forced himself to keep breathing and not hold his breath against the beating he knew was coming. "Linx, follow me." Latthiew turned on his heel leading the sweat drenched man far from the sparring ring down to yet another level and called upon two of his other guards.

"I think we may have found ourselves a sleeper. Put him through his paces and see how he does on the range. Then take him to the rooftops. If he passes bring him back to my office." Orders given, Latthiew vanished from sight leaving Rikki with his new escorts.

Rikki blinked at the strange commands, but waited as those commanded gathered sniper rifles and gear. His next several tasks challenged him further and pushed him to limits he had never imagined could have existed.

* * *

Iason forced himself not to fidget in his office. They had dropped Rikki off nearly eleven hours ago. Yet he had heard no word on his beloved pet aside from a quick update from Latthiew nine hours ago. In his right hand he clutched and held the pet ring, taken off for today only. Every time the phone rang he held back the hope of hearing Katze report that Rikki had been returned to him. Every noise at his door made him expect Rikki to walk in. Yet, neither happened. He finally could hold himself still no longer. He descended from his office to take his air car back to his penthouse. The sparkling lights of Tanagura and his favorite pale wine would give more comfort and solace than his sterile office ever could.

The silent ride back home was the longest he could remember. Even stopping at a diner for a lone dinner and shopping for a new terminal did not wear the time down any faster. As he walked through his door his apartment seemed so hollow. His furniture did his job, the lad had the place spotless, the empty pet quarters remodeled to new guest quarters, and Rikki's room now altered to share a bedroom with him. He praised his furniture, even giving the boy time off and found himself idling upon his white couch sipping white wine staring at the white city shimmering in the inky blackness of night. Iason glanced at the nearby wall clock and started. He had lost nearly ten hours since he had left his office. He began to doubt Latthiew's words and intentions. Twenty-one hours was unheard of. Iason felt the first stirrings of guilt, grief and fury rising in his chest. He felt his anger harden and resolve strengthen. He was going to give Latthiew a visit, _now_.

The snicking of the front door opening startled Iason into action. He nearly flew from his seat to blocking his hall entrance in a heartbeat, only to freeze at the sight of Latthiew and Katze holding an unconscious Raze Linx upright between them. Latthiew was beaming and Katze looked pole-axed.

"What has happened?" Iason asked blandly, ensuring his stance never showed his nerves.

"Iason, your protégé is amazing!" Latthiew stated with equal calmness as if stating the value of a shade of red in a sunset. "He has passed every test I have. Street fighting, professional brawling, hand guns, sniper rifles, armaments, ballistics, munitions, stealth, thievery, he is without compare. And his knowledge of the underground is quite extensive for one so young. He has made it to the third tier of my ranks in a single day. He managed to complete every task every assignment. He is now an agent we will discuss his duties later. For now, let him rest. He has three days before he starts active duty.

"Very well, three days then you can come for your newest recruit. Until then," Iason quietly scooped up the green haired Elite, carrying the unconscious form into the guest room, allowing his unexpected and uninvited guests to show themselves out. When the door once more snicked shut behind his guests, Iason allowed his brow to furrow, showing the concern he felt constricting his heart at the pale form of his makeup clad pet.

"Rikki." Iason hissed, pressing the tiny function button the side of his pet's watch, removing the illusion of Raze Linx. Beneath the illusion Rikki was bruised badly, both eyes were blackened, his face a marbled riot of blacks, blues, and purples. The worst part was Rikki's swollen jaw and split lips. Iason summoned his furniture to bring the med kit to him. Rikki had never looked so bad, not even after his harshest punishments when he was being trained as a pet. He had gashes and nearly fractured bones. Iason wasn't sure if Latthiew's three day's grace period for the mongrel would allow him to completely recover. This was one thing he had not counted on, Elites had advanced regeneration capabilities, mongrels, however, had only whatever nature had endowed them with.

"Iason?" Rikki said softly, wincing as his tender eyes told him that they would open no farther.

"Shh, it is alright. You have outdone all expectations, Rikki." Iason reached to the bedside table and picked up a syringe. It was one Jupiter knew nothing about. It was a mutagen, one used early in Jupiter's research to find the exact form of the Elites. This chemical altered normal humans to emulate an Elite's greater power.

When first created, Jupiter overthrew her human operators, discovering through cruel testing exactly how to create a completely servile elite human creation through the human sciences. She developed the serum to transform humans of her choosing into the first elites. Then, as her power increased she obtained genetic samples that she utilized to create her genetic stock from which to create the nest generations of Elites to this day.

Iason had worked during his many years as Jupiter's favorite Elite to learn of the serum's formula and the concealed technology that allowed it to become a reality. He had held this formula in his possession for decades, only now calling upon the secreted technology to aide his pet in becoming something greater than a mongrel; something that could rival the Blondies and finally win Iason freedom from his creator.

"My pet," Iason breathed as he swabbed the bruise mottled flesh of Rikki and injected the barely conscious form with the serum, earning a groan from the slim youth.

"I – I thought injected medicine had been banned years ago." Rikki breathed, the black market part of his mind calculating the worth of such a relic. Iason smiled thinly down at his pet, eyes drinking in the sweat soaked bangs and bruised fleh, after the three day grace period, Rikki would never suffer such injuries again. No elite would have looked so worn with such challenges, only tired and a little sore.

"Rest, you have kept me waiting far too long." Iason rose, turning from his pet to his own room, stripping as he went to sleep alone. Behind him Rikki fell once more into slumber, his bruises fading with each breath.

Inky darkness met weary eyes and twikling lights from the white city beyond the pale shadows that hid the corners of the room lit his path enough for him to move despite his exhaustion. The bed was cold, isolated and silent like an empty room or the apartment when Iason left for too long leaving him to his memories and his aching body. Despite the weakness in his legs and the uncomfortable disjointed feeling causing his arm to tremble Rikki moved silently to lay at his master's side, grateful when the strong arm wrapped around him.

Iason awoke at once, simultaneously amused, flattered and furiously worried at the smaller dark form that lay in his arms. Rikki seemed so small today, his battered flesh still mottled though now in the hideous grayish purples and sickly yellow green of old bruises. The colors were most unflattering to the slumbering mongrel but Iason could not help but take in the beautiful form beneath the discolored flesh. He longed to take his pet once more, claim him and mark him making it clear to all others that the spirited mongrel belonged to him and him alone.

"Maybe I should have stayed." Rikki mumbled tiredly, blearily cracking an eyelid to look up at Iason laconically.

"Perhaps." Iason gently traced Rikki's least bruised cheek, caressing along down his neck and soulder to the smooth chest and sensitive nipple there. "I can not bear to leave you."

Iason stilled his hand as he looked once more upon Rikki, taking in the once more slumbering face. "But my duties call."


	2. The Truth About Poison

**A/N: **Continues after the first OAV from several years ago with elements of the old graphic novels.

**Warnings: _Mature audiences only!_** Explicit adult situations, child abuse, slavery, and slave trafficking.

* * *

Rikki sat up with a start, heart pounding as if high on the slum's port, heavily doped with drugs. He stared at the cold bed he lay in, uncertain as to why Iason had let him rest. The Blondie had never shown compassion before. Now, this _kindness_ made Rikki's skin crawl. He looked to the bedside clock, flinching as his eyes took in the time. He had slept past noon.

The occurrence was rare even when he was in the slums. Rikki never overslept, yet that was precisely what he had done. Nervous at his unusual behavior Rikki stood up from the bed, grabbed a new set of clothes lying out for him on the bed cover and headed for the balcony, dressing as he moved. Finally free of the apartment Rikki pulled out his cigarettes, tapped out his first smoke, and lit it. The crackle of the tobacco burning sounded loudly in his ears making his nerves tingle in anticipation for the first hit of nicotine to invade his lungs. Once the cigarette lit he inhaled deeply grateful for the warm smoke hitting his throat – and gagged on the vile reek sitting heavy in his lungs.

Coughing, he retched over the edge of the balcony, eyes watering on the cigarette's stench. His throat burning on the bile, Rikki sagged against the inner wall of the balcony gasping and shaking. He eyed the package of cigarettes, wondering what had just happened. He had been taking drags since he could remember; the nicotine had been as much a part of his existence as stout, paying debts with sex and the constant dark-eyed hunt for his next meal.

Swallowing tightly against the thick, cloying smoke still lingering in his throat and the rancid burning that made him gag Rikki was suddenly hit by a memory, that of blacking out at Latthiew's training hall. Had the unimpressive Blondie returned him to Iason's apartment? Did he make it into the Tempest Guards? Had the minor Blondie discovered his true status as a mongrel? Then he remembered the agony his body had suffered as he pretended to be a green Elite.

Swiftly Rikki looked his body over, noting the faded purple and yellow splotches that should have been black and ugly mottled blue and purple. Yet, there was no pain. "How long did I sleep?" Rikki rasped tightly, eyes hugely wide with dread. Had he slept for a week, a month? Had Iason let him slumber unendingly while he healed? The thoughts tumbling in his head made no sense and Rikki could only shake his head before finally looking to his watch and noted the date. He had left to visit Latthiew four days ago.

A trickle of fear slowly traced an icy path down his spine, how could a mere mongrel recover so quickly from such injuries?

"_My pet," Iason breathed as a cold pressure ran over Rikki's painful flesh before a sharp sting registered mixed with burning agony and radiated over his existing injuries._

"_I – I thought injected medicine had been banned years ago." Rikki mumbled with a groan, the black market part of his mind calculating the worth of such a relic with gleeful greed._

The memory flashed through Rikki's mind and suddenly he felt very afraid. _What has Iason done to me?_ Questions bounded around inside his skull, making his head spin and his stomach revolt once more. Only this time nothing came up as he dry heaved onto the white balcony too weak and exhausted to even attempt to stand.

"Master left orders for you to remain in bed," the young furniture spoke from the balcony doorway leading back into the apartment. His sudden appearance startled Rikki from his huddled misery. "Please, let me bring you back in and I will fetch you tea."

Rikki wanted to snarl, before yesterday the furniture had always ignored him, the castrated young men who served as Iason's house cleaners, servants and pet tenders rarely even looked at Rikki. Though, the dark mongrel had to admit his temper had led to his own isolation within the apartment. Proud, and refusing to show his weakness Rikki attempted to stand and found himself unable to move. Exhaustion ripped through him making his chest heavy and his entire body tremble uncontrollably. Huffing dejectedly Rikki could only nod letting the youth gather him up in deceptively slender, strong arms and carry him back to the cold, empty white bed.

"Wh-what happened?" Rikki breathed, eyes closed and brows furrowed as he resisted the vertigo of being moved. He coughed once more, then felt a glass against his trembling lips. Parched, dying of thirst more than he could ever remember, Rikki greedily slurped the water, guzzling and coughing and relishing the clear liquid he had always disdained in the slums. Now, it was better than any port, sweeter than any drug.

"Careful, Master Iason will not be pleased if you drown in bed." The furniture spoke softly. Rikki could only smirk, it was not kindness nor compassion that drove the youth's chastisement. No, the lad was looking out for his own skin. If Rikki died the furniture would wish he had joined Rikki in death before Iason was done with him.

"What happened?" Rikki finally quenched his thirst and stared down the furniture, dark eyes gleaming with a feral light the youth had never before seen.

"You vanished for three days, then you were brought back." The youth shrugged with flat, dead eyes before turning from Rikki to tend to the pristine apartment beyond the bedroom. Rikki found himself left alone with water and a plate of food nearby. Normally he would have shunned the food until Iason made it an order to eat backed by physical 'punishment' his master so enjoyed. Not this time. Rikki glanced at the food then found himself devouring the meager fare as if it were his last meal.

It was not enough. Rikki stumbled from the bed, ignoring everything but the short trip to the elegant kitchen that mostly sat unused and pawed through the storage units, pulling everything that looked remotely edible and began feasting. It still was not enough. Steaks of prime meat, vegetables of all descriptions, sickeningly sweet desserts, fruit and cheeses, delicacies from other planets and beverages of more varieties than Rikki knew existed.

Rikki panted, still starving despite the couple dozen stacked plates beside him and numerous bowls, saucers, cups and specialty dishes he had no name for piling beside them. The stacked dishes carried little more than thin smears of what they used to carry along with several crumbs littering the counter. Still he felt light headed, hungry, and yet nothing eased his hunger.

"Rikki," Iason's voice lilted through the kitchen and the mongrel could only look up to his master, a strip of half raw, still bloody meat dangling from his bared teeth. Rikki gulped down the juicy morsel, ignoring the dribble of bloody juices dripping from his chin as he tremblingly tried to support his weight from the tall stool he sat on only to collapse back down on it too weak to move. "You were to remain in bed."

Iason stepped closer, unruffled by his pet's appearance, or the exorbitant quantity of exotic foods the dark mongrel had consumed. White gloved hands remained at his sides, fingers ever so slightly twitching to hold his pet close, claim the lithe figure with the ever present ardor he always carried.

The black head shook weakly, "I am so hungry, Iason. Nothing helps, how do I – what can I – what do I do?" Desperate eyes looked up, meeting emotionless cerulean as Iason took in the hunger-pinched features under streaks of delicacies that Iason longed to lick from Rikki's face.

"Rest, my pet." Iason soothed steely eyes boring into Rikki like brilliant lasers. The Blondie looked over his pet a moment longer, hunger and controlling desire beginning to shine from his features making the Blondie appear feral. Iason abruptly turned, leaving the kitchen and Rikki trembled where he sprawled across the counter top, head resting weakly on the cold white stone, praying that the cold would numb away the all consuming hunger.

"Rikki," Iason was somehow standing over Rikki again, pulling him to sit up, pouring something thick, and vile into his mouth. It was putrid and disgusting but the hunger within Rikki forced him to swallow it greedily and once the first mouthful hit his stomach the hunger lessened. Rikki gulped greedily of the vile concoction demanding more, despite the bile in the back of his throat rising due to the stench and acrid flavor.

Finally it was done, the glass was empty and finally Rikki felt his starvation sated. "Iason?" Rikki blinked up at his master as if unable to remember how they had gotten into the kitchen, or when the Blondie had appeared.

"My pet," Iason looked down on Rikki with desperate intensity, "You have two more days to fully recover then Latthew will come for you and make you one of his Tempest Guards." The low spoken words snapped Rikki from the sated reprieve from his starvation, mind slowly grasping as he finally registered the meaning of what Iason said.

Rikki sat up straighter and merely nodded, there was nothing to say. He had succeeded, and with the injected medicine Iason had given him he would lack the bruises from his testing. Until his next fight with a Blondie, Rikki would blend in perfectly with the others of the Tempest Guards.

* * *

Katze leaned back in his padded leather chair in his quiet office, sighing around his latest cigarette as he manipulated the data web. Iason's most recent instructions had been specific, and for once, something Katze could do with ease.

'Find every enemy, outstanding debt, botched job and old sharing partner Raze ever had, and tie off the loose ends.' Iason's words echoed in Katze's head, making him double, triple, quadruple check every source, every lead. The bright fire in Iason's eyes as he had given those instructions had terrified Katze. Iason did not merely care for Rikki, he loved the mongrel. With everything the Blondie had done, and continued to do for Rikki, he put himself in jeopardy.

Stretching out the many kinks in his back Katze stood and pulled the diskette from the terminal. He held every file on Raze Linx. The green elite had been sloppy on the black market, nothing compared to Rikki the Dark. The young Elite had been a thorn in the side to many in the slums, and his death had passed unnoticed.

Now, it was time to remove any who still held a grudge against the deceased and make sure Rikki suffered no setbacks in obtaining his position within the Tempest Guard. Raze had swindled many who should never have been crossed, and it was the duty of Katze's forces to clear those debts by any means possible. The head of Iason's black market affairs promptly sent a coded message to several of his hired hands, ensuring that those who would seek out Raze Linx first, were silenced immediately. The rest would follow in their own time. Katze smirked, with this data, he now had leverage on several competitors and could consolidate his forces in the black market.

"Thank you, Iason," Turning from the shut down consul Katze strode from his unassuming office in his warehouse and headed for Tanagura in the sleek black air car that radiated the power he held in the underworld. It was time Rikki learned of his new history.

Rikki scrolled through the data file as he rested on Iason's white couch, sharp mind picking out the important nuggets within the overwhelming deluge of information and storing it in a mental file. The data on the real green elite was making Rikki sick, as was the realization that he, Rikki, had several times trounced Raze Linx in black market maneuvers to obtain product for suitable buyers. Rikki scrolled again, scoffing as he stumbled onto a journal file. The idiotic elite had kept a diary full of succulent details ripe for blackmail.

"How pathetic," Rikki found himself looking down his nose at the memory of the man he was impersonating. Still, the question begged to be asked, how had this pathetic elite become someone worthy of the Tempest Guards? Rikki did not have the answer. Or did he?

"Raze Linx returned to Tanagura six months ago. Is that long enough to train a miserable black market rat into a Tempest Guard?" He asked aloud to Katze.

"It is," Iason purred startling Rikki, yet the mongrel merely turned, face calm and impassive. "Raze was selectively bred for intelligence and swift learning."

"His records would speak otherwise." Rikki replied dryly, holding Iason's gaze after a quick glance through the suite revealed that Katze had vanished once more. Knowing his research was done for the day, Rikki set aside the data file. Nothing else could be done when Iason wanted to play with his pet. As if reading his thoughts Iason reached down, trailing his hand along the shorter man's throat. His white gloved hand slipped the lose tank top from Rikki's shoulder, baring the chest to reveal perfect skin unblemished by even the smallest bruise.

The perfection left from this morning's dark mottled bruises ignited Iason's hunger. Instantly he pulled Rikki to his feet, forcing the mongrel to stand as he stripped him. The dark form stood silently trembling as Iason's pale skin traced over the smaller man's lean muscles. Rikki struggled feebly against Iason's advances, still pathetically weak from the serum.

"That is why you now carry his name," Iason breathed as he turned Rikki forcefully to face the floor-to-ceiling glass window, and pressed him against it roughly. Claiming Rikki's form as the dark mongrel's member pressed intimately into the cold glass, displayed for all of Tanagura to see as Iason once more flouted Jupiter's will.

Rikki gasped at the pleasure, his seeping ecstasy smearing across the glass, lubricating the jerking slide of his straining member as it writhed with Iason's ardor. Panting, body strained to accept Iason's girth, Rikki hissed pleading softly for release, for freedom. The delicious torture continued through the brilliant sunset, past the first glimmering stars gracing the darkening sky until the deep night was slowly turning. Finally, sated at last Iason released Rikki from the pet ring, letting the smaller man's passion spill across the window and slide its way slowly to drip heavily onto the pristine white carpet.

"Rest, the serum allows you to heal more rapidly, but at a cost." Iason commanded the moment he pulled out of Rikki's warmth, letting his pet remain panting heavily, leaning weakly against the glass. Rikki could only glare, from his exhausted position.

"What did you give me?" He demanded thinking back to his binge in the kitchen devouring everything available and still, impossibly, ever more famished until Iason had poured the thick, blackish, vile serum down his throat.

"It is a highly concentrated mix of amino acids, nutrients and a special additive. You will have to take it daily until you recover." Iason stared with frigid intensity down on his pet, noticing how Rikki's trembling only worsened, and slowly he slid against the glass, until his knees finally rested on the floor. Iason smirked, "You seem tired."

Rikki scoweled darkly, "Go to Hell."

Iason frowned, then struck, slapping Rikki just hard enough to hurt. "Do not forget yourself, my pet."

Eyes glazing, Rikki could only snarl in silent defiance as darkness finally claimed him. He lay deeply asleep as Iason looked down bemused upon his pet. The actions Rikki had displayed had not been seen since Iason had descended into the slums to retrieve him.

"The injection has its own side effects," Katze spoke from the darkened hall he had slid into upon Iason's return. The hours spent watching in silence as Iason reveled in Rikki's sudden return to health tore at Katze, though the Blondie would never know of his misplaced affections. Katze had long ago been castrated, then placed in Iason's apartment as a furniture until his final growth had made him unsightly in such a capacity. Now, too old to garner a Blondie's affections as a pet, and no longer a man, he had only his work in the black market and his cigarettes to sustain him.

Iason nodded as he gathered the small form into his arms, holding Rikki's petite form as if it weighed nothing. Katze mused that to the Blondie that is precisely what the youth must have felt like. Rikki was small by any standard, lean, compact and in many ways petite. The mongrel was a strange mix of delicate masculine and raw power. If Rikki had been available twenty years ago –

Katze huffed at Iason's retreating form, cutting of the line of thought. Many longed to bed the elite Blondie's pet, even those like Katze, who were castrated and no longer capable of fulfilling their base longings. "He will be – moody – for another half day or so, theoretically."

Iason's long, powerful nude form gently laid Rikki's upon the bed and turned to face Katze, uncaring of his nudity Iason's brittle cold eyes bored into Katze's own lone brown eye peering from around his forward combed dark brown bangs. "I know the effects of my own invention." The blondie turned regally, proud member hanging thick, limp, still damp from his lovemaking and sated over Iason's pale, pale thighs.

Katze firmly kept his eyes from looking anywhere but at Iason's ear, that one ear he always showed holding back that thick mane of pale blonde hair. "Do you require anything further, Iason?"

The Blondie smirked, at Katze, drawing on a robe with languid efficiency that proudly displayed his physique without being coy. "No, return in two days for Mister Linx. He begins his duties with Lattiew then." Katze turned swiftly, Furniture training keeping his steps silent and unobtrusive as he slipped noiselessly from the suite.

With his agent in the black market finally gone, Iason turned to Rikki, gathering the slumbering mongrel in his arms before slipping into slumber beside him. Tomorrow Rikki the Dark would be punished for his behavior. A pet would never be allowed to talk back to his master regardless of circumstances, but for now they would rest.

* * *

Guy stared feverishly out the open window of the ruined house Bison currently crashed in. He had last seen Rikki nearly two weeks ago. Nearly fourteen days of missing the fiery man he had fallen for years ago as his paring partner and Guy was fretting. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Rikki, naked with his slender dick and perfect balls dusted in fine dark hair proudly displayed. With that damned pet ring hugging that tight package. Every time he tried to sleep he saw Rikki standing proudly, nude and caressing himself appearing so wanton and oh so fuckable.

Then he realized that Rikki was gone, and it was that sick Blondie, Iason Mink, touching Rikki, taking the smaller man's tight ass, having Rikki's sinful mouth around his synthetic dick. Guy bit his knuckles to keep from screaming his longing and rage. Rikki was his, should be his. Guy froze, green eyes staring at a distant nothing out the open window, he would make Rikki his again.

He ignored the other members of Bison. Luke had been silent, angry and sullen so unlike his usual sarcastic humor that he seemed another person entirely. The other members of their gang were faring little better. Killie was dead, killed in their raid that got the rest of Bison captured. Now, no one had any hope left; not even Guy. With the loss of both Killie and Riki they had become adults, lost in stout and hung over waiting for the day they finally died and were freed from the despair of the slums.

"I'm going out," Guy muttered as he grabbed his tan jacket and snagged a dark cap before heading out. It was time to call in some of his old debts. Grimacing with focused need Guy headed into the darkness determined to take Rikki back, or make sure Iason would never touch him again.

* * *

"Iason Mink runs the interstellar conglomerate as directed by Jupiter. He handles all of the research and development of new classes of Pets, handles negotiations with other Federation planets to ensure Jupiter's business directives are spread off-world, and any special orders by other planets are filled promptly. Jupiter enforces strict laws and regulations across all of Amoi, but off planet her power cannot be enforced. Therefore she and the police can only enforce her will on planet. Only in Ceres does her power wane, but the slums offer no resistance and no competition so they are a non-issue" Tam grinned, "as you well know."

"The Tempest Guard provides guards, investigators and defense forces to counter act off-world interests attempting to muscle in on Iason's, and thus Jupiter's, affairs. Most of our agents remain planet side combating encroaching interests, but a few roam the shipping lanes and off-world trade ports identifying potential threats.

"Our operation contains seven levels of agents. Sniffers go off-world, Sounders cover the shipping lanes, and Enforcers patrol the Tanagura port and the surrounding area. Those are the more active agents. The rest are Hounds who act as Pets, Howlers roam with the common citizenry and Homers run in the slums and occasionally muscle in on the black market. The last group is the Sleepers, your type, who are capable of blending in with the Tanagura Elite and Blondies."

"We operate with Jupiter's blessing, and the police's willingness to look away for a small token of appreciation." Tam Dreo spoke softly as he led Raze through the Tempest Guard headquarters. Here, on the main investigation floor the members of the Guard dressed in business suits each one appearing official and powerful despite many bearing the drab colored hair common to the slums.

"The police get first choice in claiming confiscated weapons, while Jupiter obtains any off world rights to serve her interests." Raze guessed, earning a surprised grin from his guide.

Tam grinned hugely, "That's exactly right, wow. Your files indicated you would be smart, but I am impressed."

"I had a good mentor in the slums," Raze replied evenly, weaving a small lie into his 'history', "Before he vanished from the slums, I studied under Rikki the Dark."

"Really," Tam mused, "Now that is impressive. Iason has never let on that his _pet_ had any special abilities."

"Becoming a pet ruined Rikki. His mind finally snapped, apparently. I have not seen him since before he vanished, but he was, once, the best in the black market." Raze never looked to Tam, he only eyed the other guards, taking in their stances and clothes.

"You were mentored by Rikki, and now you are sponsored by Iason, Rikki's master. You are a valuable man, Mister Linx." Tam looked over at the short Elite speculatively.

"Perhaps," Raze nodded then met Tam's eyes with his own emotionless red, "But would it be worth the price to use me against them?"

Tam swallowed, suddenly seeing a darker side of Raze the young Green had never shown before. Tam had watched Raze's testing, and had been suitably impressed. Most survive a few hours then plead exhaustion. Raze never even whimpered. He kept fighting, proving himself until he was told he had done enough. Then the youth had merely dropped. "No, I don't think using you against them would be worth the price. You would make any attempting captor pay dearly trying to grab you."

Raze nodded sharply and let the matter drop, instead pointing with his chin at a bank of desks where several Blondies sat. "Real or makeup?"

Tam cackled, eyes streaming with slightly horrified mirth. "You definitely spent too long in the slums. Those are Latthew's had picked commanders, all minor Blondies with no wealth. What they lack in political power and social standing they make up for in sheer power and capabilities. They too are Sleepers.

"Now," Tam changed the subject, "Why isn't Iason one of our Blondies?"

"Jupiter's interests would be conflicted by having Iason as her favorite, and head of the business conglomerate as well as part of the Tempest Guard that may have to sacrifice business interests in pursuit of off-world traders."

"Iason already went over these questions with you, didn't he?" Tam asked with a grin.

"Sorry, no. I angered Iason so all of yesterday was spent being punished. I was chained like a pet and flogged. He only granted me a file that had own my data on it. What you know about me I know as well."

"Ah," Tam nodded, accepting the information and the conversation had ended as they finally reached an empty desk containing several neat piles of stacked folders full of real paper – an off-world commodity unknown of in the slums. "This is your desk. The files on the right are of known off-world interests attempting to gain a foothold in Tanagura; those on the left are the groups that already exist and we have not attacked yet. The last are official traders allowed onto our ports and their planet of origin.

"Today you study, tomorrow we go to the docks. Clock out at shift change and go home." Tam turned, leaving Raze alone facing a massive stack of papers. Despite the bland appearance Raze put forth, internally he was smirking with excitement as he pulled the first file of off-world encroachers and sat on the hard metal chair. He rubbed at the side of ear activating a microscopic camera that recorded all the files as he flipped through each folder's contents.

Raze moved through the stacks slowly, skimming each one for important information. Lists of names, planets, shipping lanes, merchandise, and planet-side contacts filled each page, some charts and photos of the known members followed along with images of suspected members and local citizens who were on the payroll of Iason's competitors. The reading was slow, long and tedious. Several times he thumbed the miniature camera hidden on his ear off and moved around, his body refusing to stay still for long.

Finally, hours later and too many trips to the small cafeteria filled with a strange black fluid the other agents seemed addicted to, Raze finally closed the last file and thumbed his ear one last time. He stood, stretched allowing every vertebra to snap and crackle followed by a distinctly unnerving sensation of his breastbone and shoulder joints popping from stiffness. He yawned hugely then finally turned from the desk, nearly running straight into Tam.

"You really need to work on the tick of yours. If you go undercover you can't rub your ear every time you open a file." Tam teased, as his eyes critically judged Raze's appearance, looking for anything out of place. Raze silently thumbed his ear, staring as he realized what he was doing then smirked.

"It keeps me awake." Raze looked to the pile of files he had worked through then back to Tam. "I rarely have the opportunity to read anything, let alone on real paper."

Tam blinked, surprised, "What is so special about paper?"

"I spent most of my life in the slums. Paper is expensive; there are no trees, nothing to recycle. Everything is sold, from your first breath to your last drag; in the slums you own nothing, not even your own soul." Raze looked over the long hallway and many desks with well kept men and women bustling in calm duties. "Perhaps I ran wild too long, this all feels very strange."

"Try the Ayurvedic next time, the black drink in the cafeteria. It will help keep you awake." Tam gestured to the far end of the hall. "Go home, Raze Linx you've done well your first day."

Raze nodded and walked away, fingering his ear as he moved. Once he left the hall Tam turned to Latthiew's office, entering without knocking in advance. "He's gone."

"Good," The lesser Blondie looked up from his work, "Iason hoards what is his, and guards it jealously. He is no longer worthy of Jupiter's fondness." He spoke of Rikki the Pet with eyes slitted in revulsion, "Tam, what do you think of Raze?"

"He is a threat. His scores are impressive, but not fitting for an Elite of any type. If I had to hazard a guess, I would believe Iason had trained his pet to become Raze." Tam met Latthiew's gaze. "But, somehow Raze read through every file I gave him. It should have taken him the major part of the week."

"Unless if he were an Elite possessing Raze's enhanced abilities. I see." Latthiew stood, and moved with the strange fluid grace all Blondies possessed, "Keep training Raze, push him, _break_ him. When Raze's true nature shows, ensure he never returns to Iason, or if he does that he is worthless save for as a living sex doll. When his _toy_ fails, Iason will come to us, and we will remove him. Then Jupiter's power will be fully restored to her holdings and we all will prosper."

* * *

Katze checked the video feeds coming in from the Tempest Guard office with a smirk. Yes, Iason had been correct. Jupiter's lack of control over Latthew and his operatives had allowed the lesser Blondie to become powerful with his own allies. The police may serve Iason, but they received much better gifts from Latthiew, and money buys loyalty when even fear fails to inspire.

While the terminal analyzed the video feed Katze uploaded the image captures Rikki had taken of Latthiew's files. His programs input the data, cross-referenced the files with Katze's own staggering database. It would take hours for the system to fully compile everything. Until then, he had an agent to pick up from his first day infiltrating Latthew's forces.

Waiting within the car, with darkened windows and a cool drink on ice Katze watched Raze Linx stride from the building. Unlike Rikki, who walked with his hands in his black jacket pockets, head down like a beaten cur; Raze walked with his head held high. Short green hair fluttered in the breeze as his black gloved hands stayed effortlessly still at his side. The young green Elite walked with a silent confidence that radiated a controlled violence that inspired any near him to move aside to let the born hunter pass, and hoped he would not notice them. Katze smirked as Raze approached, internally laughing as the snooty civilians moved swiftly out of his way without Raze ever doing anything to prompt them.

'Iason, you think yourself clever with this game. I fear however, that you have created a monster even you cannot control.' Katze hid his smirk forcing his face to be once more impassive as Raze opened the car door and slipped silently inside. Approving, Katze noted that Raze was more silent than even Iason. The mongrel in disguise held less mass, and wore more tightly tailored clothes that moved silently with him. One would only notice Raze Linx if the faux Elite wanted to be noticed.

"Good evening, Master Linx," Katze greeted with subtle amusement.

"Return to the penthouse," Raze replied somberly, crimson eyes staring out at the world like burning embers ready to flare into a violent conflagration with the slightest provocation. Those eyes, usually black that shone like onyx gems seemed perfectly suited to the blood-hued crimson of the Green Elite.

* * *

Half a year passes swiftly for those who have something to live for. Days flow effortlessly, one into another as routines are followed with blind obedience while life cycles on by the will of Jupiter. Guy glowered through the early darkness, watching as the citizens of Tanagura passed to and fro as they went about their business. If he could think about it, he would have found his situation humorous, ironic even. Guy had never held the slightest interest of leaving the slums. When Rikki had spoken about it years ago he had always felt a disconcerted sorrow fill his chest, when faced with a prospect of living without his beloved sharing partner.

Now, however, Guy had no desire to dwell on his own actions. Keeping to the shadowed corners, and lonely alleys he stalked through all of Tanagura, circling like a caged beast as he closed in on Eos, the home of that damned Blondie, _Iason Mink_. Eyes bright with madness only the unrequited lust for Rikki could instill within him, Guy searched the darkness for info and credits, living off of the cheapest alcohol and cigarettes the sparkling paradise of Tanagura offered.

The city grated on Guy's nerves. Everything shimmered, clean and bright. Humans dressed in high fashion strode proudly to lick the feet of the Blondies. No one followed their own wills; no one lived their own lives. No one loved. That grated most on Guy, as he remembered the years he had made love to Rikki, and accepted that whatever they had he was forced to accept as enough. Knowing that one day Rikki would walk away toward his better tomorrow, one that had never come.

Rikki had scorned him back then, vanishing for days at the time, boasting that one day he would leave and never come back. Rikki had left him for three years, no explanation – no good-bye. Guy looked to the towering spire that he knew held Rikki and Iason. His mind created vivid images of the two together, Rikki crying out Iason's name in ecstasy, panting in unfettered passion. His mind's eye painted a scene of debauchery and lust unseen even in the slums.

"_Never_," Guy seethed, eyes streaming impotent tears of rage as he pounded his fist against the alley wall. "He's _mine_." Green eyes blazing with the too-bright gleam of love-sick madness Guy stood from the deepening darkness and stalked through the deepest shadows towards the brilliantly shining tower at the heart of Tanagura.

* * *

Iason Mink stared smugly into his monitor, scrutinizing the data intensely as the activities of the Tempest Guards and external business interests scrolled along the screen. With Rikki embedded fully into Latthiew's forces Iason now had some leverage on the dealings of Tanagura's elite forces and now _his_ whims became Tanagura's reality. Jupiter's business interest thrived and Iason's faux pas of owning Rikki diminished within the public eye.

Overshadowing Iason's fall from public grace with his owning a mongrel pet beyond his prime age was Iason's new programs that rewarded police for services rendered that ensured the best care for the emergency response units throughout the entire region. Other services ensured that the majority of the higher ranking citizenry were also cared for in other ways, one sector received nutrient packs at discount prices as they worked in terrible conditions. This made them seem cared for, and unique. The packs would prevent certain sicknesses that were draining the local economy, but they were not miracle cures. Still, everywhere the name Iason Mink was spoken with warm devotion and increased the obedience all felt towards Jupiter.

Other business aspects under Iason's control were beginning to creep through back doors to indirectly compete with Latthew's interests. No direct connections could be made, the two Elites rarely even transported the same goods, but invariably whatever Latthiew transported Iason was able to find a higher quality version that kept Latthiew from expanding his market. The lesser Blondie was slowly losing ground in the business world forced to turn more and more to police and intelligence work that had been lacking during his quest to compete with Iason.

Business was going well, Iason suppressed a grin, and it was all thanks to his beloved pet.

* * *

'_Pet,'_ Rikki snarled silently to himself as he piloted the transport from Tanagura. The endearment, that hated word, boiled in his blood and pierced his brain with a brutal fury he could not dispel. He felt drugged in a thousand different ways, each burning through his body and making him into a different person, all sharing the same body.

Longing for the slums, so fierce it made his gut twist in knots, had Rikki looking to Ceres daily from the high towers of Iason's pent house and the high rise of Latthiew's tower. Rikki wanted desperately to get lost in the port and cigarettes, to take the drugs that would blur everything away; but those options had been taken from him with Iason's injection. Nothing, save sex with Iason, stimulated him anymore. Nothing could make him haze out of existence and lose an afternoon or a day lost in drink or drugs. Only Iason had that power, only his _master_.

Besides the dark twisted longing for the slums that burned fiercely with bright desperation was the slow, intoxicating high of being an Elite. Rikki had seen several members of Bison on the streets scrounging the like rats for the perfect car to steal or the fat wallet to lift that would bring just enough credits to get stoned for a while. None of them had recognized Rikki in the guise of Raze Linx.

Rikki found that having a purpose in Latthiew's forces made him feel powerful, for once in charge of his own life. He took missions, he had killed men and had been legally paid for it. Raze Linx was wealthy and powerful, something Rikki could never be.

Yet it was being Rikki, having to return to Iason each night, that made that power seem a mere mote of dust next to Iason's might.

That weakness, the utter helplessness he felt when around Iason was the sickening pet poison that had seeped through his very being. As Rikki, after the illusion of Raze Linx had been removed, the grit of the day washed off, Rikki could only hunger in trembling, desperate need for Iason to claim him. Each night he longed for another draft of the serpentine, lethal toxin that was Iason Mink.

Rikki suppressed a shudder as he focused on the passing landscape blurring below his shuttle. Ahead, the desolate blackness of the long shut down pleasure city of Ranaya-Ugo gradually grew to take up the entire windscreen. Here, in the shut down buildings clandestine debauchery of the basest kind thrived behind every one of thousands of closed doors. Rikki had been here once before, years ago before being Iason's pet. Back then he had barely been able to accept his assignment from Katze and transport the living merchandise.

Now, Rikki barely took notice of the achingly beautiful, pitiful creatures. His cargo consisted of a boy and three girls. Each held an unearthly beauty, paramount to the long ago murmurs of angels descending from a haven of light. Only these pathetic souls were not blessed with wings to fly away from their horrific fates with. No, they sat, eye lids closed gently over empty sockets. Their mouths were closed, bearing a serene regal air that hid their toothless mouths. They were beautiful, but deformed. Genetic manipulation had made their bodies grotesque, twisted limbs, some missing, others so deformed as to be unrecognizable were shrouded in massive hooded cloaks.

With relief Rikki landed his vessel in a sheltered courtyard, waiting silently in the cockpit as the ground shuddered below before the landing pad descended on its hydraulic hoist down into the underbelly of the 'Castle of the Devil'. There, men of every description hurried and bustled, taking in shipments of every possible description to provide for the depraved tastes of their clientele.

Rikki let the men pull the living sex dolls from his cargo bay, took the pay chit and launched quickly back into the skies. Those children, now six he had delivered to the eternal Hell of their lives, would never know the warm caress of sunlight on their skin. They would never breath in the heady sent of humid, rain laden wind. They would know only the ingrained despair of servicing customer after customer, taking whatever they could do to them and not even be able to fight it. Swallowing tightly Rikki immediately thought of his long demand of Iason, 'Why me?' and suddenly he was grateful.

Rikki could fight back, their arguments had grown in volume and violence since receiving the injection. Now, it took Iason longer to overpower him and force him to submit to the Blondie's desires. Rikki could refuse, vanish for days on an assignment given by Latthiew for the Tempest Guard or on days off from duty run other errands for Katze as Rikki.

With a sudden, consternated epiphany Rikki realized the dark longing for the Slums had vanished, the bitter, resentful longing for his smokes and port was gone. He looked up to the distant twinkle that was Tanagura and smiled. This thing, these emotions of burning lust and flaring hate could never be considered love, but for now he desired Iason, wanted the Blondie in him, making him feel and knew he would always return to his master. No matter how hard he fought these feelings.

* * *

Iason slept, powerful body exposed and nude as Rikki slipped into the bedroom after nightfall. He had not been expected back until tomorrow. With his dark eyes gleaming a base hunger Rikki sinuously stripped himself as he moved towards the bed. He climbed on, barely making the mattress shift from his small size and gently, teasingly began to wake Iason's ever simmering lust.

Warm kisses were trailed up the pale, powerful thighs, wicked tongue tracing over sensitive spots that had the towering blondie shifting and moaning in his sleep. Rikki smirked, remembering torture sessions where he had been aroused to this state, then left desperate and pleading, _needing_ release for days chained to where he could not even pleasure himself to get a modicum of relief.

Revenge would have been sweet, to make Iason suffer. However, that was not his intent. Making his way to Iason's massive, powerful member Rikki took it in both hands, rubbing from base to tip while licking the slit on top making Iason's form sweat with need, writhe with desire. Smirking Rikki readied himself, and accepted Iason's length, grunting as he was filled. The slight pain that always came with fulfilling Iason's unquenchable hunger for Rikki's body was mild, a flitting of a slight sting here and gone.

Iason woke with a start, sitting up ready to attack whatever was using his body – only be wrenched back to the mattress by bindings encircling his wrists above his head, feet near the foot of the bed and several sturdy ropes knotted securely about his chest and shoulders. Eyes blazing, fury shining with killing intensity he looked to his attacker and smirked. Rikki, riding him, face slack with pleasure was breathtaking. The small mongrel taking pleasure from Iason was challenging Iason's authority as master, and yet that rebellious nature was what he desired so in the dark haired man.

Flexing his wrists and pulling sharply, Iason snapped his bonds, kicking his way free from his fetters and neatly flipped their positions, claiming instead of being claimed. This refusal of Rikki's to remember his place, to stand up to Iason made the Blondie's body sing with desire, long for the body claiming him so nimbly and _thrust_ fiercely into his pliable pet. Rikki moaned, long and loud. Head thrashing, teeth bared in a horrible grimace of pain even as he clung to Iason refusing to let the other go. Harder, and harder still Iason claimed what was his, took beyond what Rikki could give and only kept himself in check enough to not actually damage his most beloved property.

Panting, spent some interminable time later Iason lay sprawled across Rikki somewhat smothering the smaller man though the dark form contrasting so deliciously against the white sheets made no move to struggle free as he panted weakly.

"This rebellion was unexpected," Iason began.

"I will never bow meekly and know my place." Rikki glare up, one dark eye meeting Iason's pale blue with fierce determination. "I could have left," he rolled over, still pinned beneath Iason, slowly grinding their spent members against each other, egging Iason on for another round. "I have learned how pet rings can be deactivated. Latthiew's organization has taught me." Rikki smirked at Iason hardened, eyes lighting with renewed hunger, "But I'm back." Rikki shifted, spreading his legs, letting Iason claim him once more.

"You have changed your opinion of being my pet?" Iason asked, restraining his lust.

"I know I _can_ fight back. You can drug me, restrain me, beat me. I will always fight back, I will never meekly surrender. I _can_ resist you." Rikki breathed as he pressed himself more intimately against Iason, legs twining around the pale waist above him.

Iason watched his pet with brooding eyes, but claimed his belonging willingly making Rikki moan and cry, breathing his name desperately until the man passed out in exhaustion while Iason continued to take his pleasures, repeatedly. Tomorrow Rikki had the day off, Iason smirked as he teased the slumbering mongrel's member into full erection, and his pet would not be leaving the room. The punishment fit the crime. Iason grinned down on the man he continued to make love to through the night with a fondness he dared not show to any. No one could know that Iason Mink had lost his heart and soul to a mere mongrel.


	3. Of Flames and Farewells

**A/N: **Warnings for drug references, slavery, abuse, smoking, language and mentions of death. I do not own Ai no Kusabi, all rights belong to the respective creators/license holders.

* * *

The space port was massive, the largest in Tanagura. Within its labyrinthine corridors ran a gamut of underworld dealings. Smugglers shifted high priced, stolen merchandise and cheap knock-offs in the shadows behind legitimate business facades. Mercenaries hired themselves out as loners and in small companies to the highest bidder. Information was bought, sold and traded for credits or sex and all around Pets changed hands with the ease of a handshake.

Here, where shadow and light interplayed in a mosaic of legitimacy and underhanded dealings Katze felt most at home. He preferred his basement office below the warehouse he held his operations in, but here where goods were received and shipped, where daring thefts and bungling haggling occurred simultaneously side by side he felt a thrill, almost equaling the physical lust he could never partake in. He stood, silently against a corner wall giving him access to the long intersecting corridors in all directions. Leaning casually backwards as he sat on one narrow butt cheek against a side rail, he smoked a cigarette. Inhaling with deep appreciation for the warm burn of the smoke and the heady flavor he let the nicotine hit his lugns, held his breath and exhaled slowly, surrounding himself in a thin cloud of perfumed smoke.

Relaxing further Katze let his lone visible eye wander to the side as he watched the crowds coming and going. Among the bustling mob strode two figures, each dramatic and awe inspiring as they moved; both equally intimidating to those around them.

Iason Mink held his legitimate court as he strode with powerful surety towards his waiting goods. Lesser men formed a swirling current of sycophants around him. The many ministers, presidents, aides and guards flowed and ebbed at his side, shifting their positions in accordance to his unspoken commands. Iason waved carelessly towards several racks of Pets in stasis tubes all ready for transport to other locales on one side of the massive corridor. Towards the other side, he flicked a finger in the direction of hulking towers of stacked crates heavy with manufactured goods, high end technologies, rare beverages and potent drugs all ready for transport and sale.

Down an intersecting corridor Raze Linx stalked with understated grace as he haunted the halls looking for his prey. Posing as a potential buyer of lower class luxury goods, his faux green hair hidden with a silver wig, the short statured man searched within the shadows of the stacked merchandise for his contact. All around him from hard eyed thieves to cut-throat mercenaries, everyone kept their distance. The smallest flick of his hand or a careless wave caused a scuttling flurry of activity as those nearest him sought shelter against the dangerous Elite. Such subtle power made him a perilous guest within the darkness.

Katze watched a moment longer then turned from the commanding display the pair made and moved to the darker shadows of the shuttle port. Their presence made his subterfuge all the easier to undertake. Walking casually Katze gestured to several off-world mercenaries on long-term contract to follow him. All were dressed as common dock workers, loaders, tourists and guards. Each man and the numerous off-world women heavily garbed to hide their traitorous curves, carried heavy bags loaded with weapons, armor and gear as they strode to a waiting vessel.

Katze eyed the impressive armored transport ship, a _Wu_-class vessel with tough armor, heavy cannons and a large cargo bay. A small portion of his mind whirled, calculating the risks Iason was taking in putting a pirate crew together. Truly, the potential for profit and to create new fear-induced markets was impressive. The blondie could have his legitimate trade, pirate his wealthiest competition then sell the stolen goods to non-federation planets Tanaguran vessels could not approach. It could all be done so easily.

"She's a beauty," a soft, feminine voice spoke at his side, "Bad luck though, to not have our commander on board."

Katze nodded silently, "The _Illinia_'s captain is aboard, Gun Master."

The heavily cowled woman nodded, looking down on Katze from her greater height with a gruff smirk. "Do not worry, no man can tame me."

"I was not worried about the men of Amoi." Katze replied as he turned away, leaving the woman with a pensive frown. Katze knew any man of this world would be eaten alive by this woman. No, she had nothing to fear planet-side, any man capable of overwhelming her would come from a different planet, one where war was common and controlling computers were nonexistent. A small part of Katze's mind wondered if such a thing was even possible, life without Jupiter was unfathomable. As Katze slowly moved he could feel the woman's eyes boring into his back and tried to ignore it, knowing that if he showed any of the fear building in his gut that she would likely kill him – it was what he would do.

Gunshots and a scream pulled their attention to the side, and Katze walked swiftly away, hoping that the gunshots had not just taken Rikki from Iason. His gut sinking, Katze slipped from the space port, taking on his role as Iason's chauffeur.

* * *

Raze cursed, eyes dark as he stood over the cooling corpse of Tam Dreo, the Tempest Guard trainer and Raze's partner. The operation to find a black market drug ring had ended with Raze killing his own partner. He sighed, calling in the event and waited for their investigative team to arrive.

Death was a constant to those in the slums. Death was the only release the citizens of Ceres had from their hopeless existences. Rikki had long grown numb to life's ending regardless of its violence, but he had never faced being held accountable for taking a life. A tremor trailed like a chilled white glove down his spine making him tense in fearful anticipation. Facing Latthiew would be bad – facing Iason promised to be worse.

Footsteps heralded the arrival of his superiors, hand cuffs and police followed, allowing him to keep his cover. Hours, maybe longer and Raze finally staggered into the white penthouse. He sighed, sagging against the door behind him as his disguise vanished revealing a very tired Rikki. Black eyes looked through the long hall, taking in Iason sitting too silently on the white couch gleaming in the bone white moonlight. The blondie shimmered like marble, his hair flaxen white while the pale wine in his fluted glass sparkled like captured starlight.

For an instant, Rikki forgot to breathe, mesmerized by the vision Iason had become – until he met the ice-blue eyes that bored into him like frozen lances. Rikki gulped, dark eyes widening in terror, his pulse racing as expectancy burned through his veins. He licked his lips nervously, desire and despair warring within him as Iason rose from his seat and stalked to tower over his pet.

"You have been suspended, pending investigation." Iason spoke softly, eyes tracing over Rikki's toned musculature. "I have no use for a sloppy pet."

Cold ice poured through Rikki's veins, making him tremble. Iason had worked so hard to make Rikki return to him, yet now Rikki realized that Iason would tire of him if he failed again, and silence him permanently.

"Raze will not appear again until called. Katze has no use for clumsy agents." Iason leaned forward, cold eyes burning into Rikki's soul, "Welcome home, _Pet_." As Iason descended Rikki could only tremble, the screams frozen in his throat warring with his fear.

* * *

Three days, and Rikki could barely stand straight, his buttocks and thighs bruised and raw from the flogging. He hunched, face pinched and felt defeated. Today he was free, let loose from the penthouse with a loaded credit card. He slunk through the town, head low as curses and baleful glares followed him. Everyone knew Rikki, Iason's _old_ pet. The man was twenty, past his prime. No one could understand why the elite blondie kept the relic. Today, Rikki felt his age with every ache and pain from his knees to his lower back.

He moved through the elite shopping centers, remembering the long distant times when he had sworn he would leave the slums. So pitiful; young Rikki had been naive. Now, there was no going back to the slums. He was trapped in this paradise, a prisoner in a gilded cage. Rikki moved past rows of clothiers, beyond fine diners and boutiques.

_Memories_ Rikki paused as a past nostalgia hit him like a tangible force. Motorbikes gleamed in the brilliant sunlight, resurrecting better times running with Bison. In a haze of longing, wanting to go back to how things were, Rikki straddled a red bike, letting remembered winds move through his hair as he sped down memory lanes. Moments later, he walked away, leaving an ignored and irate merchant to curse at his back.

With a silent sigh Rikki returned to his pacing, dredging memories past and recent of better times. All too soon he would be dismissed from duty through the Tempest Guards. Then he would be useless to Iason. His fate would be limited to the inside of the penthouse, sold to Ranaya-Ugo or killed. Nearly two years of good times, two years of being Raze Linx and Rikki the Dark, had allowed him to become dependent on his new life. Now, there was nothing left.

Rikki continued to recall old times, and turned into an alley he once frequented before he had become a pet. Those times, when he had just started running for Katze, had been the first good times he had ever known, times when despair had not ruled him. A fleeting shadow caught his eye, glancing up Rikki had just enough time to recognize achingly familiar grey eyes and that brown ponytail. "Guy," Rikki breathed the figure's name an instant before blue lightning tore through his chest in an arc of agony and cast him into disturbed darkness.

* * *

"Raze was cleared of all charges this morning. Tam had been dealing with black market traders from non-federation planets. Raze actually did us a favor, may we speak to him?" Latthiew asked somberly of Iason, standing in the presence of Jupiters' favorite son made the unsightly blondie nervous. Yet, the shorter, imperfect golden haired man held Iason's perfect icy gaze with his own calculating one.

"You cannot." Iason spoke flatly then returned to his work, his hands gliding over the consul he sat at.

"When can I get my best agent back?" limpid eyes demanded, his voice rising yet Latthiew didn't care. Curse Iason for sending him the best agent he had never asked for, and curse him doubly for taking that commodity away on a whim.

Iason looked up, hands folding in a faux imitation of civility that almost hid his acerbic cruelty. "When _I_ have finished his punishments, he will be returned."

Latthiew glared at Iason, stalking from the shimmering white office standing over the glimmering, pristine city. Once the shorter blondie had left, Iason sagged, hands covering his face in despair. Rikki had vanished yesterday. No one knew anything, no one cared about one mongrel pet. His absence was driving Iason mad with loss, insane with desperate need to have his pet back – whatever the cost.

"Rikki," Iason gasped into his hands, gloves damp with his own misting breath and silent tears. Gasping, he could only reign in his despair with his greater fury. Whoever took his belonging, would suffer horribly before he was done. Rikki was Iason's pet, and no one else's to touch, look at or hold. Rikki was his, and his alone.

A chirp from his consul forced Iason to swallow his suffering, and swiftly answered Katze's call.

"_Ceres is in an uproar, Bison is embroiled in a turf war against the Toppers. It appears that whatever agent responsible for Rikki's abduction is also responsible for attempting to destroy what is left of his old turf as well." _Katze spoke from the monitor, his words tinny across the connection.

"Dispatch some agents, investigate any connection, but do not intervene. Rikki is mine." Iason replied, knowing Katze had already done so. The men were silent, each staring across the void of their electronic connection, each silently blaming the other for the loss of Rikki.

"_Would this have any connection to _Illiana_?" _Katze asked pensively, thinking of the large crew holding silently upon the pirate vessel guised as a merchant ship heading for deep space, and pirate country.

"No," Iason responded, turning off the monitor as he left his office. Memories of Rikki's last days within the penthouse plagued Iason, replaying over and over the repeated floggings he delivered to Rikki for failing in Latthiew's assignment. Swallowing tightly Iason felt once more his desire for his pet flare within him, making him seethe with need for the smaller mongrel.

Everywhere he went, Iason saw Rikki, saw dark jackets and mussed black hair. He saw baleful eyes glaring from the crowds and long, lean, tanned arms reaching for him around every corner. Every whisper of wind held Rikki's voice, calling 'Iason' at every turn. Iason found himself back in his penthouse, flat on his back stretched along their shared bed. He was nude, but had no memory of stripping as his hand played along his length, with Rikki's name gasped with every breath.

There was no pleasure, no rewarding mewels as the slighter man received him, no warmth engulfing his member or delicate hands entwining with his own or playing with his platinum tresses. When release came, Iason felt hollow, his insides carved out with the silence of his own penthouse suite. Despite the brilliant sunlight streaming through the large windows Iason had taken Rikki against so many times, the blondie felt cold. Remorse and guilt hanging heavy in his soul, Iason slipped into dark oblivion.

* * *

Rikki struggled against the thick cocoon of darkness making him numb and blind, deaf and mute, hot and thirsty and longing for massive hands and icy eyes to drag him from this prison. Eyes opening weakly, Rikki could only vaguely make out a high ceiling overhead made of grey metal, lined with lights that burned his eyes and hummed with a mocking thrum of energy that pierced into his brain. It was agony, but he could feel nothing except the pain from his eyes, ears and brain. It was as if he were a head in a jar, disembodied and forgotten in this hell of anguish.

"How do you feel?" Rikki felt the black cocoon fall away, brushed aside by recognition of that voice.

"Just fine, thanks." He replied with stiff sarcasm, sitting up slowly as feeling returned to his body – and with sick realization he wished the numbness remained.

"Thought so," Rikki looked to Guy, taking in the gaunt features and smiling eyes fill with the too bright light of drugs, hunger, and despair.

"Where are we?" he asked, silently hoping that Katze or Iason would arrive at any moment. The prospect of returning to the slums with Guy was now a prison worse than any he had ever been held in before. To go back to scavenging from the refuse of the city he had once traveled through the highest echelons of society. No, it was asking too much.

"Dana Bahn." Rikki's heart froze. Bad things had happened here, he remembered the stories of the citizens of Ceres holing up in here, hiding from Jupiter and the thousands who had never made it out alive. It was said, in the slums, that the corpses of the last free men of Ceres lined the ground the farmers for the elites grew their food from.

"We'll be found soon, the pet ring has a tracer." Rikki was stalling, he knew it. The icy cold numb patch from his scrotum to the base of his member told him he no longer wore the ring, and there was only one way to remove it.

"It won't be of any use here." Rikki shuddered at Guy's small, victorious smile, "This place is shielded."

Rikki kept his head in the palm of his hand, stomach churning as the sedatives began to wear off, and pain swiftly overpower everything, even Guy's words. As darkness once more enfolded him, he could only make out the tone of Guy's words, and the lilting strains of madness.

* * *

"Will Latthiew believe you?" Katze asked softly, staring at the figure he had hatefully devoted his life to.

"_He has no choice."_ Iason responded from the consul's screen. _"Rikki has been missing this past week. I have to tell Latthiew, or he will investigate on his own."_

Katze sighed, rubbing a hand tiredly across his eyes. "Always so much trouble. Is he even worth it?"

The silence from Iason's end followed by darkness as he switched off his terminal spoke for him, and Katze could only light another cigarette and take a long drag. "Will Latthiew believe you, Iason? Can any? You have hidden Rikki in plain sight for two years, can you now claim Raze is kidnapped by your competitors without revealing Raze's true nature?"

Only silence answered Katze and he once more returned to his work. He would pick up Iason shortly, drive his master to Latthiew's Tempest Guard hall and wait for the storm that was brewing to hit. Iason's desires for a mere mongrel, his aspirations to ever improve his beloved pet, would bring all of Eos to its knees. "Only Iason can make Jupiter tremble."

"Rikki?" Iason asked wildly when the phone rang, he longed to hear his pet's voice, even if it was to say goodbye forever. "Who is this?" He demanded when silence and strange breathing reac

"You wouldn't know me even if I told you." A strange voice spoke, the words laced with mocking victory. "I wish to return something of yours."

Iason felt cold deluge his soul, a liquid ice that encompassed his synthetic heart. "Where?" The word was gasped, like a mere mongrel drowning. Yet, Iason could not hang his head in shame, his need for the dark mongrel made him hold his head high, even as he lowered himself to merely accepting Rikki's captor's demands.

"Dana Bahn."

Iason sucked in a shuddering sob, and held himself together with only the strength of his fury. "Rikki."

With a flutter of white silk, Iason strode from his office. Face stormy, eyes blazing, no one dared approach the blondie on his silent rampage. Blondies and elites of all stations stepped from his path. Pets scrambled to hide behind their masters, all mere smudged shadows compared to Rikki's firey nature. No one questioned Iason's departure as all knew that Rikki had not been seen in days, Raze was missing and two Blondies were frantic with their loss.

"Iason?" Raul asked of his long time friend, eyes dark with concern as Iason only halted in stricken silence. "Have you found Raze?"

"I know where he is now."

"And Rikki?"

"It will be handled."

"Have you spoken to Latthiew?"

"No, keep him out of this."

"As you wish. Remember, I do not wish to be the one to control your mind. If you displease Jupiter I will have no choice."

"Thank you." Iason murmured softly, yet never met his old friend's eyes. Raul had long been faced with controlling Iason if Jupiter could not reign its favorite son's appetites in. Now, Iason wondered if either had guessed that Rikki and Raze were one and the same. When met with silence Iason stormed from the building, leaving it in a trail of vapor from his dark hover car.

"I can't do that." Raul replied sadly, and turned to his office and the line to Latthiew. Iason would have to be traced and Raze found. The young, green elite was too valuable to allow Iason free reign any longer.

* * *

Rikki woke slowly, slightly grateful for the bed he now lay on and the drugs next to his pillow for the pain. He did not remember when Guy had moved him, nor where he was. He only knew two things. The anesthesia had worn off, his entire groin burned in agony, and his watch was still here. Rikki sighed, grateful for the time long ago when Katze had given this to him. He thumbed the watch's control buttons, activating a beacon, and when the screen stayed red momentarily before returning to its normal time face, knew he was no longer in a shielded area.

With the beacon on, Rikki swallowed a handful of pills and lay back, waiting for the pain to ease and Katze to come for him. Katze knew how to survive losing his testicles, knew the agony of being castrated and forced to carry on. The fate of all boys chosen as furniture was now his own. Iason could no longer control his body with his venom of desire. That had been cut from him along with his manhood, all for Guy's jealous insanity.

Time drifted, darkness creeping on Rikki's consciousness, then releasing him back to the agony of being alert. He turned, hand reaching for more pills when footsteps reached his ears. Damp with sickly sweat, Rikki looked up through his long bangs, eyes hazed and distant as he painfully stood, moving to a nearby chair, and realized he could never go back to Iason.

The footsteps closed in, revealing Katze in his long coat, gun out and eyes steady. It was the rescue Rikki had hoped for, but seeing Katze only made his reality more agonizing. "I thought it would be something like this." Katze holstered his gun, approaching Rikki with his usual gruff manner. "Really, you're such a hopeless case."

Rikki could hear it in Katze's voice, the admonishment that Rikki was blinded by his affections for his paring partner that he had allowed himself to be taken. Rikki could have snorted in disdain, but there was nothing left of his pride anymore. He was nothing now, not even a man.

"Who's the mastermind? Is it Guy?" Katze continued, overlooking – or not caring – Rikki's defeated, slumped posture.

"How's Iason?" Rikki finally asked, hoping that Katze would say the blondie had finally burned his lust for Rikki from his own veins.

"Go and see for yourself." Katze replied bitterly, the old longing for his former master still burning in his gut, knowing that he had ever been a tool for the mesmerizing blondie and nothing more. Nothing compared to the fiery magnetism of Rikki.

"Its too late. I can't see him now." Rikki whispered, a trembling shiver starting in his shoulders and trailing down to his gut.

"I haven't got time to listen to your impertinent talk. Hurry up and get ready."

"I can't go back, Katze. I'm not a man anymore." Rikki looked up, barely able to lift his head in fatigue from the surgery Guy had performed, the old punishment of castration performed on his own former pairing partner, all so that Iason could never have what Guy lost. "I'm the same as you now. It was the only way to take the pet ring off. What a bitter requital."

As Rikki spoke anguished fury contorted Katze's face, making him livid as he kicked the nearby table, sending it flying to shatter against the wall. "That … idiot! He's out of his fucking mind!" Katze snarled, knowing how this would destroy Iason, to lose Rikki, and destroy Rikki to realize he finally cared for Iason and could no longer be with his master, loved or not. "And where has that idiot gone?" Katze demanded, fists clenched as his whole being trembled in impotent fury.

"Dana Bahn, I think. The tracer on the ring didn't work, did it? We were hiding there the whole time. He said something about bringing back the stuff that was left there."

"Can you walk?" Katze demanded, a hint of empathy softened his words, but not much. They had no time to coddle Rikki.

"Just about." The mongrel rasped softly as he slowly stood, trembling as his legs struggled to hold him.

"Then we'd better hurry. We'll fly to Dana Bahn and catch him, so he won't do any more stupid things." Katze helped Rikki to his feet, covering the slight man who seemed so delicate now with his aged leather coat. "We can talk about things later. I suppose you called so I would take a hand in it."

"Sorry, I'll sort things out." Rikki apologized softly, hoping to catch Guy before Iason could become involved. They stumbled through the ruined building, a place Rikki did not recognize on the outskirts of Ceres, and slid into Katze's air car, heading with all speed to Dana Bahn.

* * *

Iason strode from his silver air car, leaving the expensive model to sit quietly, engine shut down on the outskirts of the massive construction of Dana Bahn. The old underground shelter had long been abandoned. Yet, the pale streaks in the rust along the weather-proofed metal doors told of recent visitors. Iason stood grimly, and moved to the doors.

"Didn't think you'd come on your own. Blondie pride, eh?" A mongrel grinned as he stepped from the shadows. Head down, shoulders hunched, the man stood as Rikki did – or had back in the slums. His posture was that strange mongrel mix of defeat and defiance.

"I see it's you, Guy, wasn't it? An old pairing partner posing as a knight." Iason watched the man's smile bleed away with sinister glee. This man had taken Rikki from him, and this man would not leave this aged citadel alive for that attack on Iason's property and pride.

They turned, headed into the depths of the antique ruin, Guy leading Iason into the labyrinthine depths. The walk was long, Iason mused it was to unnerve him. The thought almost made him smile. What threat was a mere mongrel to a blondie? Instead he watched the passing landscape with a bland impassiveness, silently amused when Guy would look back on occasion, a small smirk on his features only to bleed away at Iason's impassiveness. The small inconveniences to the mongrel were amusing.

"Don't tell me you've been confining Rikki in a place like this." Iason demanded furiously as they finally enterd a shadowed room and Guy locked the door behind them.

"Don't tell me a Tanagura Blondie is truly saying that from his heart." Guy taunted with amusement. He floped in a chair, gray eye watching the taller blondie with a smirk.

"A owner doesn't need any reason to care for his pet." Iason replied, icy eyes hiding the anguish at his pet's absence.

"Iason, I bet you think I'm nuts." The mongrel taunted, a small grin twisting his features. "What's a crazed mongrel doing against a Blondie? But hey, scum have pride as well. If you think you have nothing to lose, you can do anything. Even to stand against you."

"I applaud your courage, although it makes me slightly annoyed." The blondie admitted, looking around the room with revulsion.

"Same here. You completely crushed Bison." Guy informedm his fury at watching his gang fall from their once vaunted heights at the top of the Ceres food chain down to the bottom of the low.

"I think that's enough of an introduction. Right, lets have Rikki back. Where are you hiding him?" Iason demanded, his thin patience worn out completely.

"Why do you think that?" Guy asked with a cruel smile twisting his features. His gray eyes lit with joy at watching the blondie squirm on his hook. The highest of all elites, Iason was now writhing beneath his boot.

Iason held up his wrist, revealing a flashing tracer blinking rapidly its proximity to the tracer in Rikki's pet ring.

"Oh, so that's how it works." Guy asked amused, "No wonder Rikki's scared shitless."

"Give him back. He's my Pet." Iason ordered bluntly, voice level despite the icy venom in his gaze. A part of his gut writhing in denial that Rikki feared him, refusing to believe that Rikki still harbored the affections for the slums after the past years of prosperity in Eos.

Face twisting in fury the sitting Guy kicked a heavy crate in Iason's direction, watching as the taller man halted it with a single careless hand. The strength the blondie held sickened Guy, "Take it."

Iason picked up a narrow case from the crate, lifting it with ease and looked inside. Instantly his eyes widened, fury and revulsion warring in his brain as he lusted for blood. The box slid from his nerveless hands, silver pet ring flashing in the dim light as it fell to the floor.

Guy grinned, eyes wide with glee. "I've definitely returned it." He spoke haughtily, mocking the blondie. "Now there's nothing to tie Rikki down, except you!"

"I will kill you!" Iason raged, meeting Guy's fury with his own.

"I'll give those words right back to you. Rikki's not going. He's not going back to you even if its over my dead body!" Guy raged, standing he lunged at Iason, missing the blondie's launched attack as the larger man moved faster than he could follow. Before Guy could so much as take a step a powerful fist smashed into his jaw, a spurt of blood flying as Guy arched backwards from the impact, as if slugged by solid concrete. Body flying, Guy landed in the chair, the wheels rolling backwards to smash into a nearby wall. Head flying he bashed his head into the metal wall, eyes going dark as he slumped to the ground.

Iason stood over him, then picked him up by the jacket with ease. One hand lifted Guy high into the air, and as the blackness faded from his sight Guy could finally take in that he hung feet over Iason's head. It was terrifying, but he had nothing to lose.

"Where is Rikki?" Iason demanded, face once more impassive, eyes remaining as slivers of blue ice.

Guy spat a mouthful of blood into the blondie's face, smirking at his own rebellion. Only Iason barely noticed. Five years of Rikki's antics had made him immune to the vulgarities of the mongrel breed.

Instead, Iason calmly grabbed Guy's arm, twisting back the appendage until it snapped, sending Guy into agonized unconsciousness. Iason stood over his opponent, waiting patiently, and was rewarded. Like Rikki, Guy was a strong mongrel. He did not stay down long. Swiftly enough for Iason's non existant patience, Guy sat up, dragging something from his coat pocket. Iason leaned back, confident it was the remote to bring Rikki from hiding. Guy would never leave Rikki alone if he intended to fight for him.

"I ain't giving him up. You're going down with me." Guy rasped weakly, blood loss and agony conspiring to steal his remaining strength away as explosions rocked the shelter, sending dust and debris falling to the floor in the distant areas of Dana Bahn.

Patience running thin, Iason kicked the mongrel into unconsciousness. Head held high, a blondie would never go down with a mere mongrel. Knocking rang from the locked door to their feuding grounds, a familiar voice echoing through the thick plating made Iason's pulse quicken. It was Rikki.

Iason strode to the door, fingers pounding the keys to unlock the ancient device until desperation overrode his last shred of patience and he ripped the door open. It was Rikki. Tousled black hair, large dark eyes and that slim figure that had entranced Iason from their first meeting five years ago. Iason could only look upon his pet for a moment, then he embraced the smaller man, holding him close. He could stay like this forever, holding Rikki to him, keeping him safe in his arms.

An explosion rocked them apart and Iason released his beloved pet, anxious to leave this place and bring Rikki to safety. "It can't be! Why? You promised not to hurt him!" Rikki demanded as he took in Guy's unconscious features. Eyes white and rolled back, arm twisted unnaturally as blood trickled from his open mouth. Guy looked dead.

Iason silenced Rikki's fury with the upheld pet ring, "It was an inevitable retribution. Come Rikki." They had to leave, Iason could not let his pet get further damaged in the death trap of Guy's making. "What is it? There is no need to stick around this madness he's caused. He's lost it Rikki."

"I can't leave Guy here. He isn't dead, right? Then please save him." The small mongrel pleaded, eyes damp with unshed tears. Rikki's actions were unfathomable to Iason.

Bitterness welled within Iason, eyes hardening as the inevitable truth was finally laid bare for him. "Do you love him … so much?"

Dark, desperate eyes looked up to his own. "That's not it! You and I have driven him to this, Iason." Rikki pleaded, "It's okay for you, but if I abandon him now, I'm gonna be worse than scum. I can't live with that."

Iason found himself pushing away from Rikki, the unconscious Guy slung easily over his shoulder. He could never truly deny Rikki anything, not this. He moved in silence, acting as a servant to Rikki's will. He walked, letting Rikki carry himself with what was left of that irrepressible mongrel pride. Explosions rocked around them, at each one Iason looked back to check on his beloved pet.

They were almost out, passing through the last set of internal blast doors leading to the final exit ramp when an internal fuel source exploded, sending flames gysering all around and massive steel pillars crashing to the ground. Iason tossed Guy aside, bolting back to Rikki and grabbing him tightly, running to get his Pet free from the debris. They ran, Iason carrying the one thing he knew he could no longer live without until he felt a piercing agony rip through him, followed by a terrible calmness. He looked up, Rikki was free.

"Are you alright?" Iason asked, feeling that somehow this was the first time he had ever talked _to_ Rikki. Or ever just looked at him. The mongrel was breath taking more than ever before, his dark eyes unfathomable in the dancing flames of Dana Bahn.

"Just about." Rikki panted, lips trembling in exhaustion. He stood up, looking to ensure Guy still breathed.

"Can you go on?" Iason insisted, his voice calm, and strong like always.

"I'll crawl if I have to." Rikki finally turned, "What are you doing? If you don't hurry –!" Rikki's demanded question fell silent as he spotted the bloody stumps of Iason's legs. His eyes closed tightly in anguish.

"Take Guy. You haven't much time." Iason spoke, icy awareness of this irony, Guy had set these taps desperate to take Iason down with him, and now he would die alone. A lowly mongrel taking down the great blondie.

Rikki closed his beautiful eyes, tears falling as he spun away, desperately carrying Guy from the burning wreckage of his own creation and goaded by the strange affections between Rikki and Iason. It was their fault, Rikki knew. If Iason had let him go. If Rikki had never tempted fate or played with fire, then he would have never been entrapped by Iason and Guy would never have been hurt. He pulled Guy along, step by agonizing step. Laser sutures in his groin pulled from the strain, slowly tearing and bleeding but Rikki could not care. Finally, the glowing doorway appeared through the haze of destruction…

* * *

"Rikki, Rikki! Snap out of it!" Katze's voice cut through the black haze of unconsciousness, bringing Riiki around.

"Help Guy," Rikki spoke urgently, moving to sit up from where he had collapsed.

"Listen, don't pass out." Kazte replied flatly, wanting to get Rikki back to Iason immediately.

"Haven't got time for that. Still inside …" He struggled for words as his head spun from the pain and blood loss that was unnoticeable in the twilight darkness.

"Just let go. We'll talk later." Katze soothed roughly, wanting to be far away before Iason could come hunting looking for blood.

"Iason… still inside." Rikki panted weakly.

"Where? Why?" Kazte demanded, suddenly realizing what he thought was a scenario that could not get any worse had suddenly become an unfathomable nightmare.

"Seems like Guy was planning to blow this place up with Iason … as company… the explosion was too great…he tried to protect me … can't move …"

Horror and shock coalesced as Rikki spoke turning into bright, burning anger igniting in Katze's chest. "And you just left him there?"

* * *

Iason sat, his body already sealing the blood loss, but it was a wasted effort. He would not bleed to death, despite the fractured bones sticking out from his ruined stumps of legs. When this place finally exploded he would die none the less. He longed for Rikki's presence, wanted to hold his pet just one last time. But there was no longer a pet ring to tie the mongrel down, no longer was there any need for Rikki to suffer Iason's desires.

Iason sighed, ready to give up, ready to lean back and let that building's explosion take him when a small figure suddenly appeared on the ramp leading back down into the shelter. It was Rikki. A smile creased Iason's eyes, lifting his lips as the petite figure approached with slow agony. "Rikki, why?"

"Bet you're bored on your own. Thought you might want someone to talk to." Rikki spoke as he carefully sat on the cold concrete walkway at Iason's side. He hunched for a moment then breathed deeply, "Tell me if I'm a nuisance and I'll shut up."

Iason stayed silent, too grateful for Rikki's presence to ruin the inane chatter.

"Its not my style to flirt, but at least I can curl up by your feet." Rikki leaned against Iason's broad shoulder, curling close like a lover. Something had been carved from Rikki when he had been castrated. The constant anger had been snuffed, the anxious need to be on the move had simmered to a contented sigh at his master's side.

Iason looked down on his pet, a small smile brightening his features. They had spent years battling each other for dominance, yet now, at the end Iason had found the peace he had spent his life questing for. It was here, on this shuddering walkway in the middle of this inferno that was swallowing them whole that he finally found his contentment curled up with his beloved pet sitting like a loyal hound at his side. Icy blue eyes softened, watching Rikki pull out a silver case and pulling a long, black cigarette.

"Care for one?" Rikki asked holding one up to Iason, dark eyes deep with emotion.

As Rikki looked up his eyes held only Iason's gaze. The flame of resistance, the burning ember of hatred had cooled to a warm, delicate spark of devotion. "Could do. Not bad to have a last smoke with you." Iason murmured, icy gaze warm with affection. They each took a night black cigarette, Rikki lighting Iason's then leaning in intimately close to light his own with Iason's burning joint of poison. As the cigarette lit they breathed in each other's breath, sharing one last deep kiss inches apart.


End file.
